#sorry editing bc this is a clearer example

[patricepavisofficial]

Like this!!!!! homophonic translation

CATULLUS 70 Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat. dicit: sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti, in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.

Zukofskys (1969):

Newly say dickered my love air my own would marry me all

whom but me, none see say Jupiter if she petted.

Dickered: said my love air could be o could dickered a man too

in wind o wet rapid a scribble reported in water.

i just learned about the official english version of Racing into the Night and i am so fucking baffled, i've never seen anyone do anything like this, what the FUCK

[lumilasi]

kinda felt conflicted with the latest chapter turns out,, like i'm happy that tenko slowly regained his conscious back but the other side felt disappointed bcs it's not about tomura and the lov. it's just made looks tomura doesn't care abt lov more than partner or his "coworker" to reach his goal,, how do u feel abt the chapter 361?

Well, I haven't even read it yet because the place I read from doesn't publish it until tomorrow lol

However, I have seen people discussing it already in-depth, and tbh based on those...it actually makes sense to me, what's happening there! Sorry this’ll be a long explanation, but I tend to have Lotta Thoughts about stuff, so please bear with me lmao

(EDIT: Reworded some things because I realized I probs explained some points a bit poorly for what I was trying to get at)

I think you might be falling into the pitfall that some readers of bnha seem to fall for a lot; taking things a bit too much at face value, when the way things are written in this series (specifically with villains) tends to be a bit more complicated than that.

The assumption that just because a character says something/doesn't say something that's all there is to it, doesn't really work here due to the way the story is written and illustrated. Remember, manga is a visual medium so often the visuals, what is actually happening on-screen so to speak, add much more nuance to it than just reading the character's spoken words and thoughts, sometimes even giving you far clearer picture about what is actually happening, than the words being spoken. 

Bnha utilizes this visual storytelling a lot, naturally, since its a manga. Visuals are half the story basically, and in this particular case, sometimes they actually give you a more truthful picture of what is going on inside someone’s head, than what the character is saying.

(Also, the thing is, Bnha relies heavily on an unreliable narrator, so not taking what characters say at face value is pretty good advice lol. Basically Tomura not mentioning the LOV means a lot less in all likeness than you seem to be thinking it does, and I’ll try to explain even further why I think so)

For example, the whole thing back when Twice died, there were people thinking Dabi didn't care about Twice just because he said so, even though his actions during that very moment very much contradict his words, someone who doesn’t care about their comrade dying would not get so unhinged and nearly burn the perpetrator to death. And no, Dabi claiming Twice was useful tool for his goals or something as an explanation for this behavior was proven false by the story itself; he did not even need Twice to pull off his stunt towards his dad. 

In other words....that was a total, utter lie from Dabi towards not just the bird, but the readers lmao

Sure you could still argue it was important to eliminate the threat, buuut....Dabi’s behavior made it pretty clear this was personal. VERY personal. We’ve seen him get rid of threats before where he doesn’t react like this but instead is very calm and collected, such as during the fight with MLA (apart from that part with Geten, that got a lil personal too), or burning a bunch of thugs who got hostile towards him.

He did care about Twice, but because of his personality and history, Dabi clearly can't make himself to openly admit these things, so it is shown through his actions. (Also why would Horikoshi say those two had a brotherly relationship if he didn't care? He has said this either in an interview or an extra page of a manga volume, can’t remember exactly where) 

(Now that tangent might seem off-topic, but it’s kinda important to demonstrate the point I’m trying to make, bear with me again please)

 To get back to the actual chapter, the reason why “Tenko” showed up speaking about his childhood friend and not “Tomura” talking about the league, well....... there's actually this post that explains it really well that I reblogged earlier. 

The basic gist of it is kinda

'Tenko' woke up and not 'Tomura' because Tenko-side of his persona is free of AFO's influence, as AFO needs 'Tomura's' hatred, something 'Tenko' is free of, so he's just ignored and suppressed, rather than integrated into this weird amalgamation thing currently controlling the body. 

This small, still 'pure' part of him was the one reacting to Mirio as a result, because Afo!Shigaraki indeed doesn't care. Because he's AFO mixed with his own twisted creation ‘Shigaraki,’ unlike Tenko Shimura, the part of Tomura that does care. Which in fact, this does pretty much lead to the next point, which is....

(this point was raised more in the tags by someone else if I recall right btw, but it's a good point nevertheless) Like said, 'Tomura Shigaraki' is NOT Tenko Shimura, he is AFO's creation, this half of his persona is that potatoface’s doing, created by years of grooming and manipulation by him. A vessel for himself he created to gain control over this new body for him to use. AFO doesn't care about Tenko's friends, so Shigaraki!AFO wouldn’t react to Mirio’s words either, because the part of him that cares is 'Tenko,' currently locked away from the consciousness controlling the body.

So, the part that reacted to Mirio's words is the part of our boy that isn't influenced by AFO, which is the child, the child who'd naturally (IMO) first think of the friends he had as a kid, those people he had before someone destroyed his life and warped his mentality into creating this person that isn’t truly him, not entirely. This doesn't mean he doesn't care about the league.  (Also, EDIT2; saw another post pointing out that him recalling again the horrid memories of his family dying probably feels like they JUST happened to him, so its even more understandable the Tenko side of him would bring up his childhood friends rather than the current ones)

(see the Dabi point earlier; actions speak louder than words, and Tomura has demonstrably expressed his care for the league many many many times with his actions before, rather than words, though sometimes even with words indirectly. Him not bringing them up here - if that is indeed what he does, IDK yet as I haven't read the chapter fully yet and can't till tomorrow - isn't suddenly gonna erase all that). 

It's  likely that the part more familiar with them is currently completely overtaken/merged with AFO, and probably will need his free half (little Tenko) help to be separated from him. 'Tomura' needs to be reunited with 'Tenko' again. I.E the part that does care and is free of hate. (again a point the linked post makes at the end of it about how Izuku's gonna potentially do this) 

Little Tenko showing up by itself here matters faaaaar more than what he actually said. Because it symbolizes the fact there’s still a part of him who wants to be saved/needs saving/can be saved, an innocent, uncorrupted part that AFO has no control over. This is basically the goal our protagonist has set himself, to “save that crying child” (not an exact quote from Izuku, but basically the sentiment.)

(Whatever that saving may mean in practice remains to be seen of course, this story doesn’t enjoy being simple and having easy answers after all lmao)

TL DR: Tomura does still very much care about the league, he's consistently shown that in the past, and just because he doesn't bring them up here (which there's actually reasonable potential in-story explanations and plot reasons for why that is, also unreliable narration is this manga’s thing lol, these characters just straight up lie to the audience sometimes), it doesn't suddenly erase the precedent the story has set that he does care about them. That’d just be pretty bad writing at that point to completely ignore what you’ve set up before, and while his writing has issues at times, I trust Horikoshi enough to not fail THAT badly lmao

[jjinomu]

SCREAMS I HAVE AN IMPORTANT QUESTION............how do you make your female models t hicc........ because some of my ocs (like most of them) have different body types, and usually my shorter ocs have thicc thighs lole //especiallymycatocwhyamilikethishahhaanoclue// but yEAH pls help me.... If it needs meta I'll cry because I don't know how to use it plus I haven't bought it lma o

HI,,,,,,,, I SERIously have no idea how to explain wtf i do tbh,,,,,,,,, so i thought the best way would just to record an example (i used my already edited miku base since i dont have the original tda base anymore im so sorry)???? so here u go!!!! (i edited pretty much everything but her tiddies)

https://youtu.be/nNH8ll025JU

sorry the recording is sooo shitty quality!!!!! im noob this is like my first time doing a screencapture, but you get the basic jist of what im doing (just moving and scaling vertices) and i turned on wireframe to make it more clearer zzzz 

tbh i usually would and recommend doing it in meta bc it’s just easier,,, but i did it in PMX just for u bc i mean, its pretty much the same thing!!! the only thing is that in meta- u can mirror and watch ur actions reflect on the other side in real time, but in PMX- you can only work on one side and imagine it reflected until u actually mirror it zzz (im shocked that it turned out pretty ok my first go but yknow)

and this is wat the edited looks like bc i almost forgot to add that in:

i hope something helps idk if this is even helpful at all 

im also gna quickly clarify some things i clicked or w/e in the speededit in case you can’t see or its too fast in a readmore:

→ i mentioned turning on the wireframe in PMX and this is how you do it (its located at the bottom of PMX but it was off my screencapture): 

→ i also mirrored my edited side by doing the following:

1. 

(check all three boxes by clicking on them and then select the edited half along with the bones AND THE INVISIBLE BONES bc i forgot (and that was my first fuck up))

2. mirror it by doign the folloiwing

[mikami]

I feel as if you are mislead in that text post you made about the task force not totally believing Light was Kira, but aiding L in investigating him anyways. For starters, to begin investigating someone, you do not always need conclusive evidence, you only need grounds for suspicion. That is how certian investigations work, as the culprit isn't always obvious. Secondly, the task force was partially made of members who were neutral on the opinion on whether Light was innocent or not. (1)

(2)(For example, his father and Matsuda were convinced he was innocent. They really should not have been working on the case in my opinion.) As for the fandom being frustrated at the fact that the task force did not believe L, this could be because of the dramatic irony going on, as the audience knows he is correct in his assumptions. Lastly, you tagged the post as “light wasn’t convincted then bc L couldn’t prove it period”.

(3)In reality, L was on the verge of revisiting the possibility that Light was Kira (As he really considered the possibility Light was only a victim proved on page 81 of the third issue of the Black Edition manga) and in my opinion could have eventually proved he was Kira, now aware of his method of killing. Really, he did not convict Light because he died too soon to do it. And Light was convicted by Near, which shows capture was not impossible, and L was well capeable of doing it.(End)

I’m not sure you understood what I was trying to say in that post.

I’m not faulting anyone for investigating Light - of course they needed to investigate him. That is indeed how you get evidence to start with.

And I did merely say the Task Force, as a collective, ‘does not buy into L’s suspicion fully’. From my understanding of English (and I may be wrong because it is not my mother tongue), this, in reverse, means ‘they give L’s thought due consideration’. Not sure where I indicated they were all convinced by Light’s innocence.

And yes, the fandom is caught up in the dramatic irony and that exactly is my gripe: failure to put themselves into the perspective of the characters and consider why it made rational sense for them to act as they did.

And then on that point about the tags: well, yeah. L was on the verge of proving it. Did he prove it? No.

I was talking about canonical events as they happened, not whatever potential L may have had as a person. The matter of fact is that before L died he had no solid proof that Light is Kira. That’s all I am referring to. No ‘what if’s.

Sorry for being curt with you here, but I really think this was a long row of misunderstandings based on my original post - I may have phrased myself clumsily, but I hope it is clearer now.

[makeitwithmike]

12 Quick Editing Tips for Social Media Managers

By Curtis Foreman

JAPADOG is a wonderful little company that operates a food truck and restaurant in my hometown of Vancouver, BC with the stated mission of “making the world happy and alive through hot dogs!”

As you can imagine, some JAPADOG fans were devastated when this post appeared on Facebook:

As commenters began mourning the closing of the much-loved stores and carts and wished the owners well in their future endeavors, JAPADOG stepped in to clarify that they were just closing for the day.

This is a cute and harmless example (though the “I just had a mini heart attack” commenter might disagree) of a case where a few seconds spent editing a post for clarity could have prevented a misunderstanding. But the stakes aren’t always so low.

From accidentally tweeting images of national tragedies to unintentionally making light of domestic violence, the world of social media abounds with cautionary tales of brands reeling as slip-ups on social explode into PR disasters.

And while there have been some truly horrendous typos on social (such as Yahoo Finance’s now-legendary inadvertent racial slur), even a less cringe-worthy typo can do lasting damage to your brand. Research by Global Lingo has found that as many as 59 percent of customers won’t do business with companies that publish content with bad grammar or spelling mistakes.

A little good old-fashioned editing can save your brand—and possibly your job.

As an editor who started working back in the days when we’d print copy decks and mark them up with actual pens, I’ve seen many things change over the years. But the value of clear, precise writing hasn’t changed at all.

Here are my best tips to help you avoid the nightmares of a media manager and make editing a quick and painless part of your publishing routine on social.

Bonus: Download our free guide that shows you how to 10X your social media performance and beat your competitors. No fluff or tired tactics—features the tools, daily routines, and advanced techniques used by three world-class industry experts.

12 editing tips for social media posts

1. Edit like a trauma surgeon

Trauma surgeons use triage as a system to prioritize patient treatment and maximize the number of survivors.

As a social media manager, you might not have time to look up whether there’s one “l” or two in “traveling” (answer: it depends), but you should really spare a few seconds to ensure you and your team aren’t promoting your competitors or depicting implied sex acts in ads for a family restaurant.

Like a trauma surgeon, learn to identify life-threatening (or in your case, career-threatening) conditions and treat them first. Maximize the number of survivors.

2. Edit like Beavis and Butthead

Before posting something, read it like a junior high school kid looking for something to snicker at. If you’re not aiming for suggestive humor, fix it before the internet gets its dirty mitts on it.

For reasons that should be obvious if you’ve ever used the internet, supermarket chain @aldiaustralia soon regretted this tweet:

Photo from Facebook via Metro

3. Handle humor with care

Social media and humor make a great couple. Everyone loves a good laugh… except when they’re trying to find out how to return a defective product you sold them. Or when they can’t figure out why an error message keeps popping up in the software they bought from you.

Before cracking a joke, be aware of the emotional state of the people you’re speaking to, and of the wider context in which you’re communicating. Anyone who works in customer service will tell you that the people in the refund line are a tough crowd.

And as a social media professional, you don’t need me to tell you that it’s never a good idea to make a joke in which the punch line relates to a person’s ethnicity, gender, or economic status.

To bring this point home, here’s a now-infamous and spectacularly inappropriate #TacoTuesday tweet by Dave & Buster’s sports bar that never should have seen the light of day:

Photo from Twitter via AdAge

4. Have someone else edit your work

If I had to guess, I’d say none of the examples I’ve included so far in this article were seen by more than one pair of eyes before they were posted.

As writers, we all have our blind spots. (I’m pathologically and inexplicably incapable of remembering with confidence that gray is spelled with an “a” and have to look it up all the time. Go figure.)

Fortunately, we work with other people. Even if you’re a solo practitioner, there’s probably someone in your life with a decent sense of style and taste who wouldn’t mind glancing over your tweets before you release them into the wild. And if you’re at an agency or brand, you’ve likely got a team member (or an entire team) who will be more than happy to point out that you really should stop using commas to join independent clauses already.

5. Rewrite anything ambiguous

As the owners of JAPADOG learned, ambiguity breeds confusion. Before posting, ask yourself if what you’ve written could be misunderstood. If it could, look for a clearer way to write it.

“Biweekly” is a good example of an ambiguous term to avoid:

Biweekly: Twice a week Biweekly: Every two weeks

Sorry about that. http://bit.ly/2iZibc4

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) August 6, 2016

When the dictionary apologizes for a definition, you know it’s time to look for another word.

6. Know the difference between good and bad compulsiveness

Yes, the rules of grammar and usage are important. No, every violation of these rules isn’t an error.

In The Elements of Editing (written in 1982, but still a good read), veteran editor Arthur Plotnik shares examples of bad compulsiveness (fussing over minor grammar and formatting rules) and good compulsiveness (obsessively rewriting a headline until it’s perfect).

Plotnik’s advice holds up today. When editing, keep your focus on making content as effective and engaging as possible, and on catching errors that actually affect readability and clarity.

Another editor whose take on this I love is Carol Saller, author of The Subversive Copy Editor and editor of the The Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A. Her book is a worthwhile read on how editors can “resist compulsions, banish insecurities, and develop habits of carefulness, transparency, and flexibility.” If you’re a word nerd, follow her on Twitter at @SubvCopyEd.

“Bake for precisely 8-10 minutes.” #copyeditorbaking

— SubversiveCopyEditor (@SubvCopyEd) July 2, 2017

7. Choose your style authorities

A day in the life of a social media manager is far too short to waste debating whether to use the serial comma. (Want my opinion? Just use it.)

Decide on a few style authorities to use as a tiebreaker in these discussions (or better, to look up words and usage rules before you start arguing with anyone). If you work at an agency or in-house for a brand, your brand team may have sorted all this out for you already.

You’ll want a style and usage guide for general questions of style, plus a dictionary for spelling. Here at Hootsuite, we follow the Associated Press Stylebook for usage and style and Merriam-Webster for spelling (both have handy online versions, though you’ll pay a few bucks a month for the AP stylebook).

As your house style matures, you’ll likely diverge from at least some of the spellings and usage rules in your style authorities of choice—which is where your own style guide comes in.

8. Keep a house style guide

Every brand that publishes content should maintain a house style guide. A well-maintained style guide makes it easy for new writers on your team to get up to speed, and it ensures you’ll write content that’s consistent.

Established brands typically have more detailed and thorough style guides, especially if they’re in the publishing business. The Chicago Manual of Style is pretty much the gold standard for print, and the AP Stylebook is a popular one for journalism and general writing. I’ve long been a fan of the Mailchimp Content Style Guide, which perfectly strikes a balance between providing just enough guidance to write well without getting into overwhelming detail.

Your style guide doesn’t need to be beautifully designed or comprehensive, especially at first. Just create a document where you record style decisions as you make them, so you’ll never need to make the same decision twice. A cheat sheet of off-brand content or other words and phrases to ban is a helpful section to include.

If you’re ready to get started creating your house style guide, here’s where to start.

9. Know what works on your networks

Creating content that’s free of brand disasters, embarrassing typos, and inconsistent stylistic choices is a good baseline from which to start—but there’s not much point crafting perfectly edited content if it doesn’t inspire engagement and response from your audience.

Part of your job as an editor is to learn what resonates with your audience and do more of it. Learn how to measure the effectiveness of your content. Learn to use hashtags. Learn what works on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. Help your team create and deliver more of what works.

10. Get help from technology

An editor’s job is to help writers deliver great content. Good old-fashioned copy editing is one way you can help, but there are a growing number of software tools that can do some of the heavy lifting for you.

Check out our list of writing tools and try using some of them with your team. I’m a fan of the Hemingway App for removing unnecessary verbiage, and of Grammarly for checking grammar, spelling, and internal consistency.

While you’re checking out Grammarly, I also recommend subscribing to their blog, if just for their cheeky editor-baiting welcome email:

11. Build editing into your social workflow

If you work at an agency or in-house for a brand, you probably already use social media management software to manage multiple social networks and accounts.

An essential feature of this type of software is the ability to manage approval workflows. Hootsuite’s Team, Business, and Enterprise plans let you set up your teams and workflows to prevent innocent errors—as well as not-so-innocent rogue posts.

HMV could have benefited from workflow and approval features during their very public Twitter meltdown:

Photo from Twitter via National Post

12. Write well

If you’re going to presume to improve the content a writer has agonized over, it’s a good idea to put yourself through a little of that agony yourself.

At the very least, practicing the craft of writing yourself will make you a more sympathetic editor. It will also help you continue developing a nuanced feel for the finer points of language—something that’s indispensible in both writers and editors.

If you haven’t read The Elements of Style, get it and read it now. It’s a classic and a quick read that covers the elementary rules of usage and composition every writer should master.

And for guidance on writing for social media, you need look no further than the wealth of guidance on this blog. We’ve written a wealth of advice on how to write calls to action, clickable content, and content that converts. Want to write faster? Want resources for non-writers? Inspiration from people who will help you write better? Inspired tweets? It’s all here. Enjoy.

There’s a lot more to editing than being a grammar grouch. (By the way, if you’re still using the term “grammar Nazi,” please read this piece from @grammargirl on why it’s time to stop).

From saving your brand’s reputation to helping your team grow as writers, you play a key role as a steward and champion of great content. In the words of Arthur Plotnik, “You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you. We edit to let the fire show through the smoke.”

The post 12 Quick Editing Tips for Social Media Managers appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

The post 12 Quick Editing Tips for Social Media Managers appeared first on Make It With Michael.

from 12 Quick Editing Tips for Social Media Managers

[bizmediaweb]

12 Quick Editing Tips for Social Media Managers

JAPADOG is a wonderful little company that operates a food truck and restaurant in my hometown of Vancouver, BC with the stated mission of “making the world happy and alive through hot dogs!”

As you can imagine, some JAPADOG fans were devastated when this post appeared on Facebook:

As commenters began mourning the closing of the much-loved stores and carts and wished the owners well in their future endeavors, JAPADOG stepped in to clarify that they were just closing for the day.

This is a cute and harmless example (though the “I just had a mini heart attack” commenter might disagree) of a case where a few seconds spent editing a post for clarity could have prevented a misunderstanding. But the stakes aren’t always so low.

From accidentally tweeting images of national tragedies to unintentionally making light of domestic violence, the world of social media abounds with cautionary tales of brands reeling as slip-ups on social explode into PR disasters.

And while there have been some truly horrendous typos on social (such as Yahoo Finance’s now-legendary inadvertent racial slur), even a less cringe-worthy typo can do lasting damage to your brand. Research by Global Lingo has found that as many as 59 percent of customers won’t do business with companies that publish content with bad grammar or spelling mistakes.

A little good old-fashioned editing can save your brand—and possibly your job.

As an editor who started working back in the days when we’d print copy decks and mark them up with actual pens, I’ve seen many things change over the years. But the value of clear, precise writing hasn’t changed at all.

Here are my best tips to help you avoid the nightmares of a media manager and make editing a quick and painless part of your publishing routine on social.

Bonus: Download our free guide that shows you how to 10X your social media performance and beat your competitors. No fluff or tired tactics—features the tools, daily routines, and advanced techniques used by three world-class industry experts.

12 editing tips for social media posts

1. Edit like a trauma surgeon

Trauma surgeons use triage as a system to prioritize patient treatment and maximize the number of survivors.

As a social media manager, you might not have time to look up whether there’s one “l” or two in “traveling” (answer: it depends), but you should really spare a few seconds to ensure you and your team aren’t promoting your competitors or depicting implied sex acts in ads for a family restaurant.

Like a trauma surgeon, learn to identify life-threatening (or in your case, career-threatening) conditions and treat them first. Maximize the number of survivors.

2. Edit like Beavis and Butthead

Before posting something, read it like a junior high school kid looking for something to snicker at. If you’re not aiming for suggestive humor, fix it before the internet gets its dirty mitts on it.

For reasons that should be obvious if you’ve ever used the internet, supermarket chain @aldiaustralia soon regretted this tweet:

Photo from Facebook via Metro

3. Handle humor with care

Social media and humor make a great couple. Everyone loves a good laugh… except when they’re trying to find out how to return a defective product you sold them. Or when they can’t figure out why an error message keeps popping up in the software they bought from you.

Before cracking a joke, be aware of the emotional state of the people you’re speaking to, and of the wider context in which you’re communicating. Anyone who works in customer service will tell you that the people in the refund line are a tough crowd.

And as a social media professional, you don’t need me to tell you that it’s never a good idea to make a joke in which the punch line relates to a person’s ethnicity, gender, or economic status.

To bring this point home, here’s a now-infamous and spectacularly inappropriate #TacoTuesday tweet by Dave & Buster’s sports bar that never should have seen the light of day:

Photo from Twitter via AdAge

4. Have someone else edit your work

If I had to guess, I’d say none of the examples I’ve included so far in this article were seen by more than one pair of eyes before they were posted.

As writers, we all have our blind spots. (I’m pathologically and inexplicably incapable of remembering with confidence that gray is spelled with an “a” and have to look it up all the time. Go figure.)

Fortunately, we work with other people. Even if you’re a solo practitioner, there’s probably someone in your life with a decent sense of style and taste who wouldn’t mind glancing over your tweets before you release them into the wild. And if you’re at an agency or brand, you’ve likely got a team member (or an entire team) who will be more than happy to point out that you really should stop using commas to join independent clauses already.

5. Rewrite anything ambiguous

As the owners of JAPADOG learned, ambiguity breeds confusion. Before posting, ask yourself if what you’ve written could be misunderstood. If it could, look for a clearer way to write it.

“Biweekly” is a good example of an ambiguous term to avoid:

Biweekly: Twice a week Biweekly: Every two weeks

Sorry about that. https://t.co/8FBUonz7yq

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) August 6, 2016

When the dictionary apologizes for a definition, you know it’s time to look for another word.

6. Know the difference between good and bad compulsiveness

Yes, the rules of grammar and usage are important. No, every violation of these rules isn’t an error.

In The Elements of Editing (written in 1982, but still a good read), veteran editor Arthur Plotnik shares examples of bad compulsiveness (fussing over minor grammar and formatting rules) and good compulsiveness (obsessively rewriting a headline until it’s perfect).

Plotnik’s advice holds up today. When editing, keep your focus on making content as effective and engaging as possible, and on catching errors that actually affect readability and clarity.

Another editor whose take on this I love is Carol Saller, author of The Subversive Copy Editor and editor of the The Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A. Her book is a worthwhile read on how editors can “resist compulsions, banish insecurities, and develop habits of carefulness, transparency, and flexibility.” If you’re a word nerd, follow her on Twitter at @SubvCopyEd.

"Bake for precisely 8-10 minutes." #copyeditorbaking

— SubversiveCopyEditor (@SubvCopyEd) July 2, 2017

7. Choose your style authorities

A day in the life of a social media manager is far too short to waste debating whether to use the serial comma. (Want my opinion? Just use it.)

Decide on a few style authorities to use as a tiebreaker in these discussions (or better, to look up words and usage rules before you start arguing with anyone). If you work at an agency or in-house for a brand, your brand team may have sorted all this out for you already.

You’ll want a style and usage guide for general questions of style, plus a dictionary for spelling. Here at Hootsuite, we follow the Associated Press Stylebook for usage and style and Merriam-Webster for spelling (both have handy online versions, though you’ll pay a few bucks a month for the AP stylebook).

As your house style matures, you’ll likely diverge from at least some of the spellings and usage rules in your style authorities of choice—which is where your own style guide comes in.

8. Keep a house style guide

Every brand that publishes content should maintain a house style guide. A well-maintained style guide makes it easy for new writers on your team to get up to speed, and it ensures you’ll write content that’s consistent.

Established brands typically have more detailed and thorough style guides, especially if they’re in the publishing business. The Chicago Manual of Style is pretty much the gold standard for print, and the AP Stylebook is a popular one for journalism and general writing. I’ve long been a fan of the Mailchimp Content Style Guide, which perfectly strikes a balance between providing just enough guidance to write well without getting into overwhelming detail.

Your style guide doesn’t need to be beautifully designed or comprehensive, especially at first. Just create a document where you record style decisions as you make them, so you’ll never need to make the same decision twice. A cheat sheet of off-brand content or other words and phrases to ban is a helpful section to include.

If you’re ready to get started creating your house style guide, here’s where to start.

9. Know what works on your networks

Creating content that’s free of brand disasters, embarrassing typos, and inconsistent stylistic choices is a good baseline from which to start—but there’s not much point crafting perfectly edited content if it doesn’t inspire engagement and response from your audience.

Part of your job as an editor is to learn what resonates with your audience and do more of it. Learn how to measure the effectiveness of your content. Learn to use hashtags. Learn what works on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. Help your team create and deliver more of what works.

10. Get help from technology

An editor’s job is to help writers deliver great content. Good old-fashioned copy editing is one way you can help, but there are a growing number of software tools that can do some of the heavy lifting for you.

Check out our list of writing tools and try using some of them with your team. I’m a fan of the Hemingway App for removing unnecessary verbiage, and of Grammarly for checking grammar, spelling, and internal consistency.

While you’re checking out Grammarly, I also recommend subscribing to their blog, if just for their cheeky editor-baiting welcome email:

11. Build editing into your social workflow

If you work at an agency or in-house for a brand, you probably already use social media management software to manage multiple social networks and accounts.

An essential feature of this type of software is the ability to manage approval workflows. Hootsuite’s Team, Business, and Enterprise plans let you set up your teams and workflows to prevent innocent errors—as well as not-so-innocent rogue posts.

HMV could have benefited from workflow and approval features during their very public Twitter meltdown:

Photo from Twitter via National Post

12. Write well

If you’re going to presume to improve the content a writer has agonized over, it’s a good idea to put yourself through a little of that agony yourself.

At the very least, practicing the craft of writing yourself will make you a more sympathetic editor. It will also help you continue developing a nuanced feel for the finer points of language—something that’s indispensible in both writers and editors.

If you haven’t read The Elements of Style, get it and read it now. It’s a classic and a quick read that covers the elementary rules of usage and composition every writer should master.

And for guidance on writing for social media, you need look no further than the wealth of guidance on this blog. We’ve written a wealth of advice on how to write calls to action, clickable content, and content that converts. Want to write faster? Want resources for non-writers? Inspiration from people who will help you write better? Inspired tweets? It’s all here. Enjoy.

There’s a lot more to editing than being a grammar grouch. (By the way, if you’re still using the term “grammar Nazi,” please read this piece from @grammargirl on why it’s time to stop).

From saving your brand’s reputation to helping your team grow as writers, you play a key role as a steward and champion of great content. In the words of Arthur Plotnik, “You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you. We edit to let the fire show through the smoke.”

The post 12 Quick Editing Tips for Social Media Managers appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

12 Quick Editing Tips for Social Media Managers published first on http://ift.tt/2u73Z29

[unifiedsocialblog]

12 Quick Editing Tips for Social Media Managers

JAPADOG is a wonderful little company that operates a food truck and restaurant in my hometown of Vancouver, BC with the stated mission of “making the world happy and alive through hot dogs!”

As you can imagine, some JAPADOG fans were devastated when this post appeared on Facebook:

As commenters began mourning the closing of the much-loved stores and carts and wished the owners well in their future endeavors, JAPADOG stepped in to clarify that they were just closing for the day.

This is a cute and harmless example (though the “I just had a mini heart attack” commenter might disagree) of a case where a few seconds spent editing a post for clarity could have prevented a misunderstanding. But the stakes aren’t always so low.

From accidentally tweeting images of national tragedies to unintentionally making light of domestic violence, the world of social media abounds with cautionary tales of brands reeling as slip-ups on social explode into PR disasters.

And while there have been some truly horrendous typos on social (such as Yahoo Finance’s now-legendary inadvertent racial slur), even a less cringe-worthy typo can do lasting damage to your brand. Research by Global Lingo has found that as many as 59 percent of customers won’t do business with companies that publish content with bad grammar or spelling mistakes.

A little good old-fashioned editing can save your brand—and possibly your job.

As an editor who started working back in the days when we’d print copy decks and mark them up with actual pens, I’ve seen many things change over the years. But the value of clear, precise writing hasn’t changed at all.

Here are my best tips to help you avoid the nightmares of a media manager and make editing a quick and painless part of your publishing routine on social.

Bonus: Download our free guide that shows you how to 10X your social media performance and beat your competitors. No fluff or tired tactics—features the tools, daily routines, and advanced techniques used by three world-class industry experts.

12 editing tips for social media posts

1. Edit like a trauma surgeon

Trauma surgeons use triage as a system to prioritize patient treatment and maximize the number of survivors.

As a social media manager, you might not have time to look up whether there’s one “l” or two in “traveling” (answer: it depends), but you should really spare a few seconds to ensure you and your team aren’t promoting your competitors or depicting implied sex acts in ads for a family restaurant.

Like a trauma surgeon, learn to identify life-threatening (or in your case, career-threatening) conditions and treat them first. Maximize the number of survivors.

2. Edit like Beavis and Butthead

Before posting something, read it like a junior high school kid looking for something to snicker at. If you’re not aiming for suggestive humor, fix it before the internet gets its dirty mitts on it.

For reasons that should be obvious if you’ve ever used the internet, supermarket chain @aldiaustralia soon regretted this tweet:

Photo from Facebook via Metro

3. Handle humor with care

Social media and humor make a great couple. Everyone loves a good laugh… except when they’re trying to find out how to return a defective product you sold them. Or when they can’t figure out why an error message keeps popping up in the software they bought from you.

Before cracking a joke, be aware of the emotional state of the people you’re speaking to, and of the wider context in which you’re communicating. Anyone who works in customer service will tell you that the people in the refund line are a tough crowd.

And as a social media professional, you don’t need me to tell you that it’s never a good idea to make a joke in which the punch line relates to a person’s ethnicity, gender, or economic status.

To bring this point home, here’s a now-infamous and spectacularly inappropriate #TacoTuesday tweet by Dave & Buster’s sports bar that never should have seen the light of day:

Photo from Twitter via AdAge

4. Have someone else edit your work

If I had to guess, I’d say none of the examples I’ve included so far in this article were seen by more than one pair of eyes before they were posted.

As writers, we all have our blind spots. (I’m pathologically and inexplicably incapable of remembering with confidence that gray is spelled with an “a” and have to look it up all the time. Go figure.)

Fortunately, we work with other people. Even if you’re a solo practitioner, there’s probably someone in your life with a decent sense of style and taste who wouldn’t mind glancing over your tweets before you release them into the wild. And if you’re at an agency or brand, you’ve likely got a team member (or an entire team) who will be more than happy to point out that you really should stop using commas to join independent clauses already.

5. Rewrite anything ambiguous

As the owners of JAPADOG learned, ambiguity breeds confusion. Before posting, ask yourself if what you’ve written could be misunderstood. If it could, look for a clearer way to write it.

“Biweekly” is a good example of an ambiguous term to avoid:

Biweekly: Twice a week Biweekly: Every two weeks

Sorry about that. https://t.co/8FBUonz7yq

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) August 6, 2016

When the dictionary apologizes for a definition, you know it’s time to look for another word.

6. Know the difference between good and bad compulsiveness

Yes, the rules of grammar and usage are important. No, every violation of these rules isn’t an error.

In The Elements of Editing (written in 1982, but still a good read), veteran editor Arthur Plotnik shares examples of bad compulsiveness (fussing over minor grammar and formatting rules) and good compulsiveness (obsessively rewriting a headline until it’s perfect).

Plotnik’s advice holds up today. When editing, keep your focus on making content as effective and engaging as possible, and on catching errors that actually affect readability and clarity.

Another editor whose take on this I love is Carol Saller, author of The Subversive Copy Editor and editor of the The Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A. Her book is a worthwhile read on how editors can “resist compulsions, banish insecurities, and develop habits of carefulness, transparency, and flexibility.” If you’re a word nerd, follow her on Twitter at @SubvCopyEd.

"Bake for precisely 8-10 minutes." #copyeditorbaking

— SubversiveCopyEditor (@SubvCopyEd) July 2, 2017

7. Choose your style authorities

A day in the life of a social media manager is far too short to waste debating whether to use the serial comma. (Want my opinion? Just use it.)

Decide on a few style authorities to use as a tiebreaker in these discussions (or better, to look up words and usage rules before you start arguing with anyone). If you work at an agency or in-house for a brand, your brand team may have sorted all this out for you already.

You’ll want a style and usage guide for general questions of style, plus a dictionary for spelling. Here at Hootsuite, we follow the Associated Press Stylebook for usage and style and Merriam-Webster for spelling (both have handy online versions, though you’ll pay a few bucks a month for the AP stylebook).

As your house style matures, you’ll likely diverge from at least some of the spellings and usage rules in your style authorities of choice—which is where your own style guide comes in.

8. Keep a house style guide

Every brand that publishes content should maintain a house style guide. A well-maintained style guide makes it easy for new writers on your team to get up to speed, and it ensures you’ll write content that’s consistent.

Established brands typically have more detailed and thorough style guides, especially if they’re in the publishing business. The Chicago Manual of Style is pretty much the gold standard for print, and the AP Stylebook is a popular one for journalism and general writing. I’ve long been a fan of the Mailchimp Content Style Guide, which perfectly strikes a balance between providing just enough guidance to write well without getting into overwhelming detail.

Your style guide doesn’t need to be beautifully designed or comprehensive, especially at first. Just create a document where you record style decisions as you make them, so you’ll never need to make the same decision twice. A cheat sheet of off-brand content or other words and phrases to ban is a helpful section to include.

If you’re ready to get started creating your house style guide, here’s where to start.

9. Know what works on your networks

Creating content that’s free of brand disasters, embarrassing typos, and inconsistent stylistic choices is a good baseline from which to start—but there’s not much point crafting perfectly edited content if it doesn’t inspire engagement and response from your audience.

Part of your job as an editor is to learn what resonates with your audience and do more of it. Learn how to measure the effectiveness of your content. Learn to use hashtags. Learn what works on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. Help your team create and deliver more of what works.

10. Get help from technology

An editor’s job is to help writers deliver great content. Good old-fashioned copy editing is one way you can help, but there are a growing number of software tools that can do some of the heavy lifting for you.

Check out our list of writing tools and try using some of them with your team. I’m a fan of the Hemingway App for removing unnecessary verbiage, and of Grammarly for checking grammar, spelling, and internal consistency.

While you’re checking out Grammarly, I also recommend subscribing to their blog, if just for their cheeky editor-baiting welcome email:

11. Build editing into your social workflow

If you work at an agency or in-house for a brand, you probably already use social media management software to manage multiple social networks and accounts.

An essential feature of this type of software is the ability to manage approval workflows. Hootsuite’s Team, Business, and Enterprise plans let you set up your teams and workflows to prevent innocent errors—as well as not-so-innocent rogue posts.

HMV could have benefited from workflow and approval features during their very public Twitter meltdown:

Photo from Twitter via National Post

12. Write well

If you’re going to presume to improve the content a writer has agonized over, it’s a good idea to put yourself through a little of that agony yourself.

At the very least, practicing the craft of writing yourself will make you a more sympathetic editor. It will also help you continue developing a nuanced feel for the finer points of language—something that’s indispensible in both writers and editors.

If you haven’t read The Elements of Style, get it and read it now. It’s a classic and a quick read that covers the elementary rules of usage and composition every writer should master.

And for guidance on writing for social media, you need look no further than the wealth of guidance on this blog. We’ve written a wealth of advice on how to write calls to action, clickable content, and content that converts. Want to write faster? Want resources for non-writers? Inspiration from people who will help you write better? Inspired tweets? It’s all here. Enjoy.

There’s a lot more to editing than being a grammar grouch. (By the way, if you’re still using the term “grammar Nazi,” please read this piece from @grammargirl on why it’s time to stop).

From saving your brand’s reputation to helping your team grow as writers, you play a key role as a steward and champion of great content. In the words of Arthur Plotnik, “You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you. We edit to let the fire show through the smoke.”

The post 12 Quick Editing Tips for Social Media Managers appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

12 Quick Editing Tips for Social Media Managers published first on http://ift.tt/2rEvyAw